I was excited today to fall upon the Fresh Expressions website.

Fresh expressions has been set up by the Archbishop to:

The Church of England and the Methodist Church want to establish many different fresh expressions of church life in the next decade to carry the gospel to every part of our society.

Fresh Expressions is the new national initiative of the Archbishop of Canterbury and York supported by the Methodist Council. Our aim is to resource and encourage this major movement of mission and change across the churches.

At the Mission Shaped Church conference a few months back, Rowan Williams was obviously clear and keen that the church needed to take seriously fresh expressions of church and resource it.

I’m shocked that he has started the process so quickly. Shocked but very excited!

Today Jim preached on ‘Who is my neighbour’.

He challenged us to consider the command of Jesus to love others as we love ourselves.

It’s very easy to love those that are like us or those we like, but he pointed that anyone can do that. Jesus calls us to love those we find it hard to be with as well. He challenges us to see Jesus in all of his creation – which includes every person we come across.

Living in Medway I often hear people, even some from churches, talk of Chav scum. Other times at football I here people talk of Millwall (a rival local football team)fans as scum. In fact, not long ago a friend told Tom that a certain set of fans were all scum and Sarah and myself obviously had to challenge that immediately. You see, I think if we don’t, and we do believe God created all, in effect we are labeling God with whatever term we choose to label others.

Jesus was asked what was the most important commandment. He replied saying there were 2:

1. To love the lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul.

2. To love your neighbour as yourself.

This morning Jim suggested that 2 was a clear indication of the strength of 1. This is hard to stomach, but I think he might be right. The measure of how much we love God will show in the quality of relationships we have and how we treat others around us.

It’s kind of easy to love friends. It;’s often harder to love family. Its easy to give money. I think, though, Jesus demands a lot more.

Somewhere in the Bible Jesus says ‘Whatever you did for one of these, you did for me’. We cab read into that he was also meaning, ‘whatever you did not do for these, you did not do for me’. That’s quite a sobering thought.

I left church with some questions this morning:

How often have I ignored Jesus.

How often have I seen him and hidden in the shop doorway?

How often have I neglected to phone or visit him when I know he needed just that?

How often have I hurt him with thoughts or actual words?

How often have I talked about him behind his back?

Have I ever called Jesus scum?

The picture Berikan cinta pada sesama (Love your neighbour)is by an Indonesion artist Taring Padi

was mainly good while it lasted (if we make no mention of Gilingham football)

On Saturday we spent some cool time together as a family, and it was good just to chill together. Even more so as I am on retreat with other YFC managers for 3 days next week.

During the evening, Sarah’s youth team were here fr drinks and nibbles as a thank you. They were an ok bunch to spend Saturday night with.

Today was Ernie’s (Sarah’s dad)birthday which meant a big family event with 17 of us eating and having a laugh together.

I like weekends where we can just chill with friends and family.

Last night saw a successful launch of Solid YFC in Wandsworth.

It was exciting to be there but even more exciting for those people whose vision this was to see it becoming a reality.

Please pray for Pauline and the others involved as they continue to work. Pauline quite rightly said ‘We’ve launched … now what?” She then went on to say that Solid YFC was there to serve the local church. They are there to serve the young people of the area and resource them as they explore their visions with God.

For this to happen the Christians of the area need to share their thoughts, dreams and ideas with Solid YFC. Please pray that this happens – and if you are nearby in Wandsworth get in touch with them.

It’s been a busy few days which I’m pretty excited about really.

To backtrack a little; after my 10 mins of fame on Premier Radio I received quite a few emails in my inbox on the following Monday. Amazingly, they were all in groups from particular parts of town – so watch this space!

Yesterday it was good to meet with Ben Hyde in the lovely Kent town of Sittingbourne. Here the church leaders are looking together at some co-ordinated youth outreach within the town. Obviously to me I feel this should be a YFC centre. The leaders are chatting about this and I have a really positive feel about the way forward in Sittingbourne.

Today I met with Mike King who is the Director of the Children and Youth Work at St Lukes church in Maidstone. We were catching up with each other but I particularly wanted to raise with him the possibility and viability of some YFC work in Maidstone. It strikes me that this is a town with loads of young people and active churches able to work together – and so a really environment in which to plant a YFC centre.

Mike has taken ideas away and I hope things will move over the next few months with the churches there.

In a little while I will be leaving to drive off to Wandsworth for the launch of Solid YFC in East Hill Baptist Church. This will be an incredibly exciting time. The launch concert will include an appearance by dj Dave Blackwood, songs from Dave Doran an address from Roy Crowne, National Director of Youth for Christ.

Pauline is a fantastic woman and has been working in Wandsworth for many years, introducing young people to Jesus. The launch of this centre will be the realisation of a dream she has had for years. Its really cool to see things like this come off and I am really looking forward to the excitement of the launch this evening.

Hopefully I will be able to post some pics tomorrow.

I had a great day today with a few other YFC people at the Hillside studios in Bushey, on the outskirts of Watford. WE were there to receive some media training, particularly on how to handle press interviews both face to face and over the telephone as well as the radio interview.

This was a fascinating day and I think it must be one of the best days of training that I have had in years. Laura Payne was our tutor for the day. She came from a background of working on all the national papers as well as being a Christian so understood exactly where we, s workers of an evangelical mission organisation, were coming from.

We were given fantastic pointers on help us to deal with journalists and take control of the interview. We practiced interviews in front of each other and although it was quite daunting being listened to by everyone else, this, and the reflections following the interviews, were probably the most valuable parts of the day.

YFC uses EA Media consultantcy to deal with our PR. Allen Moxham has pointed us to resources that can help us all. There are great ideas there such as how to write press releases and so on.

Thanks Laura, Jean and Allen for organising and running a fantastic day for us.

On my travels this week I joined the trustees of Waltham Forest YFC.

At the start of the evening Ruth led us in a time of worship. She placed various objects on the table and then, in turn, asked each of us ‘chose’ one of the objects and spend time thinking on how that object represented our relationship with God.

The objects were diverse and everyday item such as a cup, coaster, remote control, pair of glasses an so on.

This turned out to be a very powerful time as we were all able to see God clearly in the everyday, man-made world. For those of us living in urban situations where god may not immediately be obvious in the man made and concrete world it was fantastic to be able to remember that God is right at the centre of the synthetic the world, just as he so obviously is at the centre of the natural one.

Of the objects I ‘chose’ (by the time it was my turn there were only 2 objects left) the remote control. After looking and thinking I thought the following:

the numbers on the remote reminded me that we are not numbers to God. He sees us as individuals.

the remote allows us to watch different channels according to our different tastes and moods. God communicates to us in different ways according to who we are and how we are feeling and relating at the time

the mute button reminded me that God speaks in the silences

the off button indicated to me that we have the power to turn on and off the communication line that exists between us and God

This was a really simple, yet effective idea, for seeing God in the everyday objects that are all around us.

Today is Remembrance Sunday. In church we always have the civic service where we see the Mayor and the MP for Gillingham, along with war veterans and current members of the armed services.

The church today was packed, with only standing room at the back. This is an interesting service as many of the regular church decide not to come as it is ‘too structured and irrelevant’ which means 10 mins after the service ends the church is virtually empty. All that are left are the few regulars and those guests that we have managed to offer a coffee too.

I wish more people would come so that we gave these visitors a more realistic picture of how healthy the church is in Gillingham. These visitors would be totally justified in believing the church was dead with very few people normally attending.

While in the service today, and since, I have been thinking on remembrance – what is it all about?

Obviously it is about those who have did in wars. This year in particular this is indeed very relevant to us as citizens of the UK. Last year after DDay celebrations I was really struck by a great sense of gratitude for what that those young men had gone through so that I could have a life free of fascism.

In the words of the Exhortation before The Last Post:

When you go home, tell them of us and say,

‘For your tomorrow we gave our today’

I find myself asking ‘why‘. Not just why the carnage in both world wars but now also in Iraq, but more of why did these men and women go and fight. I suppose they believe that in doing so they could overcome an evil. They were prepared to put their lives on the line to see that happen – the overcoming of an evil. For that, for a better world, they were prepared to fight, and fight to the death if that was what was needed.

While thinking about this I saw a program on BBC3 tonight on the making of the Live Aid record. One of the most striking lines in the song, which Bono says was incredibly difficult for him to sing, is ‘Tonight thank God its them instead of you’.

I sit here picturing the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers and feel massively ashamed that I hold the same sentiment and thank God that it was them fighting on the beaches instead of me. As that sinks in I feel pretty sick with myself, but the fact is true nevertheless.

I was thinking about the word remembrance itself. We only use it once a year at this time I thought … but we don’t. I suddenly realised that we use it regularly in the Anglican church in the Communion service: Jesus tells us to ‘do this in remembrance of me’.

Jesus came to fight, with the belief that he could overcome evil, with the belief that he could make the word a better place and he was prepared to, and did, die for that belief. We remember through the bread and wine that God’s kingdom is now taken out symbolically by each of us into the different parts of the community in which we have our place. In this act of remembrance we are also carrying out an action that has present meaning as we are equipped as God’s people to ‘go out’. This is true for all of us, whether we are able to remember the actual act we are remembering or not. As I take communion next time, I will be thinking ‘Thank God it was you instead of me’ and I will be wondering if Jesus will be saying to me ‘For your tomorrow, Rob, I gave my today’.

Remembrance, it seems to me, is all about our past and our future. It’s not an irrelevant act for some aging serviceman. It’s important that we all remember … in case we forget! If we forget what has been done and sacrificed for us in the past, it follows that our own individual futures are bound to suffer because of that.

Remembering the past motivates us for the future. We see our ancestors as people of hope, they really did believe that their individual actions could make a difference. They believed they had a responsibility to act.

As we remember and look back, we realise again that we can make our individual difference to our world. If we forget that we just hang around and wait for a leader, a celebrity or saviour to sort stuff out for us.

When we remember we realise that person has already been and made it so we are now in the position to make a difference ourselves.

It’s been a long long week with issue after issue. I was just thinking I wish I had a new toy to play with (I know I’m not the only man who likes gadgets!) and I saw this on Jonny’s blog.



I have just got to go out and buy one – I think every church and para-church organisation should have one!

Just think of all that great fun (I mean evangelistic opportunity) that we could have with an SMS guerilla projector.

It’s going on my wish list – who’s gonna get me one?

It feels hollow when your boyhood hero dies.

Peace Crazy Horse.

Emlyn Hughes 1947-2004